Just a quick post - from inspiration to reality

I am in love with Pinterest... as many of you may be.  You can check out my boards here .


While looking around today and not finding what I was looking for, I did come across something I did like:

Beach Themed Living Room

And from there, I went here: Using Inspiration Photos to Create your Home's Best Look
That's how I get lost; one click to another; read; click and so on.  Without repeating the whole article, I hope you'll read it if you find lots of inspiration but get stuck on how to implement it.

Their 5 Step approach:

1. Break down each imagine...what draws you in.
2. Now that you know what you like, create a mood board.
3. Go shopping with your board; bring real fabrics and paint samples.
4. Put your spin on it...
5. Don't be afraid  to edit.

When I was re-doing my kitchen on Long Island, it was basically from scratch and I wanted to bring in things and the feel of Prague.  I carried around paint samples, cabinet piece for color, paint samples, napkins, curtain valance, tile... each time I added something to the kitchen I added it to my collection so when shopping, I could easily see if it would match.  Even when I thought so, I'd take it home and lay the things out (in the kitchen light) and see if it still matched... Don't take the tags off or throw away packages until you are absolutely sure.  And even then hold on till you have lived with it a while.  One of those recycle shopping bags are good for carrying these things around and easy to grab to go out the door, (many times I left it in the car for shopping).


I painted that kitchen yellow, walls and ceiling and never got over how happy and bright that kitchen was.  I had to paint this kitchen yellow too.  This time, the ceiling and walls and cabinets are a pale yellow, while the cabinet doors are a brighter yellow.  And I am trying to work around things that I have and "put my spin on it".  See my kitchen ideas.

What I am doing now with my living room is burning that Living Room into my brain and putting my spin on it BEFORE going shopping, and will edit as I put it together.  I'm not sure why exactly but I am working in sections.  (Maybe it has something to do with clutter I create due to lack of room and my disability to move what needs to be moved.)  Right now, I have 3 walls painted a brighter aqua color...the ceiling will be the same pale yellow as the kitchen ( they run into each other).  I keep playing (in my head) with the 4th wall.  There is a break-thru on the wall between the living room and kitchen; so I go over whether to just paint the wall the aqua or the lower half aqua and the top yellow or all yellow.  I'll figure it out, meanwhile, I'll keep working on painting wall accessories from black to white (frames, shelves).

Stay tuned as I go along on this journey.
~pat